List of varieties of Chinese

The following is a list of Sinitic languages and their dialects. For a traditional dialectological overview, see also varieties of Chinese.

Classification

"Chinese" is a blanket term covering many different varieties spoken across China. Mandarin Chinese is the most popular dialect, and is used as a lingua franca across China.

Linguists classify these varieties as the Sinitic branch of the Sino-Tibetan language family. Within this broad classification, there are between seven and fourteen dialect groups, depending on the classification.

The conventionally accepted set of seven dialect groups first appeared in the second edition of the dialectology handbook edited by Yuan Jiahua (1961). In order of decreasing number of speakers, they are:

Mandarin (including Beijing and Nanjing variants)
Wu (including the Shanghainese and Suzhounese variants)
Yue (including the Cantonese and Taishanese variants)
Min (including the Hokkien and Fuzhounese variants)
Hakka (Kejia)
Xiang (Hunanese)
Gan (Jiangxinese)

The revised classification of Li Rong, used in the Language Atlas of China (1987) added three further groups split from these:

Mandarin Ã¢ÂÂ Jin
Wu Ã¢ÂÂ Huizhou
Yue Ã¢ÂÂ Pinghua
Min
Hakka (Kejia)
Xiang
Gan

Summary

The number of speakers derived from statistics or estimates (2019) and were rounded:

List of languages and dialects

In addition to the varieties listed below, it is customary to speak informally of dialects of each province (such as Sichuan dialect and Hainan dialect). These designations do not generally correspond to classifications used by linguists, but each nevertheless has characteristics of its own.

Gan

Mandarin

The number of speakers derived from statistics or estimates (2019) and were rounded:

Hui

Sometimes subcategory of Wu.

Jin

Sometimes a subcategory of Mandarin.

Hakka

Min

Wu

Xiang

Yue

Pinghua

Ba-Shu

Other

The non-Min dialects of Hainan were once considered Yue, but are now left unclassified:

Mixed languages

In addition to the varieties within the Sinitic branch of Sino-Tibetan, a number of mixed languages also exist that comprise elements of one or more Chinese varieties with other languages.

List in the Atlas

The extensive 1987 Language Atlas of China groups Chinese local varieties into the following units:

Supergroup ( dÃÂ qÃÂ«), of which there are but two: Mandarin and Min
Group ( qÃÂ«), corresponding to the varieties of Chinese of the ISO standard
Subgroup ( piÃÂ n), which may be mutually unintelligible with other subgroups
Cluster ( xiÃÂopiÃÂ n), which may be mutually unintelligible with other clusters
Local dialect ( diÃÂn), which are the dialects sampled by the Atlas